Snowman Defense - Ludum Dare 31 by Baknik

made by Baknik for LD31 (COMPO)

An evil lab has been cooking up a surprise for the local village...LIVING BLOODTHIRSTY SNOWMEN! Defend them with you trusty snowball launcher and see how many you can take down before getting overwhelmed! Resistance is futile.

I focused much more on polish and animation this time around, and I think it shows. This entry still lacks a musical track like my previous entries, just due to my lack of knowledge in that field. However, it is packed with custom-recorded sound effects, slick animations, and nifty particle effects! Well, I think they're cool anyway.

The tools I ended up using were Unity, Inkscape, and Audacity.

Enjoy the game!

Edit: I'm currently working on a post-compo version with better game balance and more polish. This will be the first time I've actually worked on a project post-compo, so wish me luck!

Web	http://www.departuregames.com/snowmandefense/Deploy.html
Source	https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5174475/LudumDare31/Source/LudumDare31_SnowmanDefense_Baknik_UnitySource.zip
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=22088

Ratings

Coolness	66%	3
Overall	3.28	459

Audio	2.58	630
Fun	3.24	405
Graphics	3.54	277
Humor	2.94	282
Innovation	2.53	935
Mood	2.86	630
Theme	3.62	528

Feedback

Interface

08. Dec 2014 · 03:07 UTC

Nice game and fun to play. The yellow snowballs (um, what?) keep you in the game - took me a few tries to figure out how the ratio of snowballs needed versus gained worked.

wandersenus

08. Dec 2014 · 09:17 UTC

what a good game!!!

Donutttt

08. Dec 2014 · 18:06 UTC

I went crazy and ran out of ammo... twice haha. This was cool though it's an interesting spin on the whole defence thing

NoahbroCZ

08. Dec 2014 · 18:08 UTC

Good game, but maybe too hard. Please check my game too: Presidents bodyguard simulator.

dsilvers

08. Dec 2014 · 18:09 UTC

Neat! I'd love some way to restock ammo other than destroying snowmen, though, as death is very much an inevitability but I'd like to hold it off as long as possible.

sputnik

08. Dec 2014 · 18:30 UTC

Interesting idea and balance between ammo. But there should be another way to gain ammo (random drop).

🎤 Baknik

08. Dec 2014 · 18:49 UTC

Thanks for all the ideas on how to make ammo better! The game could use some extra balancing.

billrizer

10. Dec 2014 · 00:54 UTC

Cool game, ran out of ammo tho!

Would love to have seen some BG music too :)

5k0d

10. Dec 2014 · 01:03 UTC

Overall pretty decent game, but it takes a while to figure out how the system is working. Keep it up!

mrexcessive

10. Dec 2014 · 13:53 UTC

Hi there. Great looking plants vs. zombies ish winter wonderland. Liked the animations and effects. Were not enough snowballs I think... Got the reloads from pressing space but still not enough. Liked the SFX when you start getting killed by passed snowmen... Good job!

SoulGame

13. Dec 2014 · 01:37 UTC

Hey, neat entry, the polish is quite visible indeed and makes things smooth enough. My problem concerns ammo. All I could figure is that I had to press SPACE time to time to regain one. And also strategically using Q or E depending on the situation to save the most ammo I could. But... I still run out of ammo super quickly (only killed 21 snowmen). Sorry if I missed something obvious! Good luck with your post jam ^^

ruthiepee

13. Dec 2014 · 01:39 UTC

Nice graphics! The game is genuinely fun, too, until you run out of ammo. I couldn't figure out how to balance the number of snowballs shot vs. gained. But the game works well, with no flaws! Looking forward to seeing what you do with it post-compo.

sathorn

13. Dec 2014 · 01:45 UTC

Nice game, but it feels wrong to kill snowmen. You should have picked a different enemy. Like, humans.

🎤 Baknik

13. Dec 2014 · 02:19 UTC

One tip to people having difficulty with ammo. The special spacebar snowball pickup increases in value over time. So patience helps!

pjimmy

13. Dec 2014 · 13:27 UTC

lol, love the scream when you miss the snowman, nice

apiotrw

14. Dec 2014 · 23:05 UTC

Solid

Dissiden7

17. Dec 2014 · 00:38 UTC

Great entry. One of the most polished ones I've seen yet.
The only issue I was having was running out of snowballs. It took 3 snowballs to kill one snowman, not 2.

Dracir

17. Dec 2014 · 02:41 UTC

Got to 23. MM so the strategy is to wait at the last minute to kill the most on one row.

playvue

17. Dec 2014 · 02:43 UTC

This is a great start, and while you clearly focused on "art polish", I think you could've spent some of that time on "gameplay polish" and seen a much better return. The gameplay is slightly confusing at first because you run out of ammo right away with nothing else to do but wait to die. And, there doesn't seem to be any end goal/achievement. Again, great job on the art! But some add'l time spent on gameplay could go a LONG way! =)

PapyPilgrim

29. Dec 2014 · 19:35 UTC

I takes 3 white balls to kill a snowman, which give you only 2 balls left... and it takes 4 or 5 (random?) yellow balls. So the only profitable to kill a line of 3+ snowmen (which happens rarely and randomly). Anything else makes you loose.

I get that you wanted to make a survival game, but it's not really fun when everything you can do has a negative outcome